Police conduct: Focus on punishment needs to change

A FOCUS on punishing officers as part of the police misconduct system needs to change, says the NPCC lead for Professional Standards and Ethics.

Warwickshire Chief Constable Martin Jelley told Police Oracle that the system should instead be about learning and improvement for officers involved in misconduct cases. He said the current system was too ‘blame heavy,͛  that it was confusing and that investigations can take too long.

Often, that͛’s because cases are set out as gross misconduct charges when they should be performance matters, he said.

“We need a bit of a revolution,” he said in the Police Oracle interview. ͞”It is a system that feels too focused on punishment. There is a desire at my level and elsewhere to move it to being about learning and development with a strong performance regime to support it,” he added.

͞”It must feel very blame focused and, because of the processes and procedure we go through, often investigations are not concluded for a very long period of time. It͛s not great if you’re a member of the public who made a complaint and it goes on for a long time and it͛s certainly not great if you’re an officer under investigation for a long time.

“That will impact on your family, your welfare and other things.”

A plethora of new recommendations have been sent to the Home Office from the NPCC in a bid to bring about change, although Chief Constable Jelley acknowledged that a cultural shift is also needed. The new regulations are expected to be in place by early 2019 allowing the system to focus on the most serious elements of misconduct.

Meanwhile, medically-unfit officers who don’t qualify for ill health retirement could face dismissal under new draft regulations.  Police Oracle reports that The Home Office has submitted plans on ͚capability dismissal͛ to the Police Remuneration Review Body. The new power could apply where there is no other role the officer could perform and if they don͛t meet strict permanent disablement criteria, for which there is a lengthy determination process.

A Home Office Spokesman added that dismissal will only apply in a small number of cases and once all other options had been exhausted.